Frank chose literature. He had, while in the engraving business, written
a number of fairy tales, some of which had been published in juvenile
magazines; also a few short stories, and quite an ambitious long story,
which was published in a prominent magazine. He was then sufficiently
well known as a writer to obtain without difficulty a place on the
staff of Hearth and Home, a weekly New York paper, owned by Orange Judd,
and conducted by Edward Eggleston. Mrs. Mary Mapes Dodge had charge of
the juvenile department, and Frank went on the paper as her assistant.
Not long after Scribner's Monthly was started by Charles Scribner (the
elder), in conjunction with Roswell Smith, and J.G. Holland. Later Mr.
Smith and his associates formed The Century Company; and with this
company Mr. Stockton was connected for many years: first on the Century
Magazine, which succeeded Scribner's Monthly, and afterward on St.
Nicholas, as assistant to Mrs. Mary Mapes Dodge, and, still later, when
he decided to give up editorial work, as a constant contributor. After a
few years he resigned his position in the company with which he had been
so pleasantly associated in order to devote himself exclusively to his
own work. By this time he had written and published enough to feel
justified in taking, what seemed to his friends, a bold, and even rash,
step, because so few writers then lived solely by the pen. He was never
very strong physically; he felt himself unable to do his editorial work,
and at the same time write out the fancies and stories with which his
mind was full. This venture proved to be the wisest thing for him; and
from that time his life was, in great part, in his books; and he gave
to the world the novels and stories which bear his name.

I have mentioned his fairy stories. Having been a great lover of fairy
lore when a child, he naturally fell into this form of story writing as
soon as he was old enough to put a story together. He invented a goodly
number; and among them the Ting-a-Ling stories, which were read aloud in